Almost a dead heat. What a race (and that just being able to hear it on internet radio)!

Day off work today.

Had grave fears for Illo when it was an early leader because the early leader NEVER gets it.

Spooked that I put Dunaden on top of the poll O.o!

What I’ve done the past couple of years is play the youtube clip to the kids the day after. With about 28 kids in a class, and each kid assigned a number at the beginning of the school year by their homeroom teacher (i.e. 1-28), one kid gets to be the lucky winner [the other five will get to pick a number of their choice, chillax]).

Sure, it’s just dumb luck, but then again… ;-)

The kids have a ball, and it’s a little bit of cultural fun. No use teaching or learning the language without a bit of culture chucked in! :-)

Like this:

…But it isn’t going to change the fact that she could have acted to fix the situation before any planes were grounded using the very laws that she personally helped draft.

PRIME Minister Julia Gillard has blamed Qantas for leaving thousands of passengers stranded in Australia and around the world, insisting the airline didn’t need to take the “extreme” action of grounding its fleet.

As the federal opposition tried to force Labor onto the back foot on Monday over the handling of the dispute between Qantas and three unions, Ms Gillard defended the government’s actions and the industrial relations laws she drafted when she was workplace relations minister in the Rudd government.

“I do not believe that this extreme action should have been taken,” Ms Gillard told parliament.

“I do not believe that Qantas should have acted to leave tens of thousands of Australians stranded effectively without notice around Australia and in many parts of the world.”

Like this:

The government had three hours (if not more) to use section 431 of an act, the Fair Work Act the PM personally had a major hand in writing, to stop the union strike actions and keep the QANTAS planes flying.

PM Gillard didn’t act.

Why?

Questions are even being raised whether government ministers were even aware of the options at their disposal.

Why did it have to come to such drastic measures being taken by a struggling airline before the relevant arbitratory body would do anything?

In October, the federal government issued dozens of one-year waivers to companies like McDonald’s, insurers, and unions. TheTimes explains, “These limited-benefit plans, also known as ‘minimeds,’ fail to comply with new rules phasing out limits on how much policies will provide in medical care each year.”

Furthermore, the administration granted dozens more waivers in order to avoid the disruption that would have resulted from the enforcement of the new rules. Likewise, the Department of Health and Human Services has indicated it will use a different method of calculating spending for these plans so that they would meet new regulations.

The administration has defended these decisions, asserting that they are merely addressing concerns posed by employers. However, Gateway Pundits contends that without the “right connections, you can’t get a waiver for your company.” It adds, “That’s the new reality under the Obama-Pelosi regime.”

Similarly, Fox News asserts, “These are companies that maybe have the smartest lawyers and loudest voices — Aetna, McDonald’s, Jack in the Box, the unions — fighting for the exemptions and getting the waivers.”

That’s the sin of it. A law was created inside of three minutes. It was “shoot now, ask questions later.” We put it out there; we realized everything is wrong with it. And the little guy affected the most doesn’t have the money and the big corporate attorneys to go back to the government and fight for it. We have big companies getting away with it and the little guy getting hurt yet again.”

The memory hole:

Two sites, here and here, both link to an HCC list of companies that are exempt from paying for ObamaCare.